Live, From Baton Rouge
From Baton Rouge with Purpose: A Few Days Well Spent at LAOP 2026
If you've ever been stuck in an airport while you are half-way to Baton Rouge on a hot May afternoon with a suitcase full of trade show materials, you know the particular mix of excitement and "why did I agree to this!" That was me Wednesday. By Thursday morning, though, I remembered exactly why this meeting matters — and why showing up in person still beats any webinar.
The Louisiana Association of Orthotists and Prosthetists Annual State Meeting drew a solid crowd to the Renaissance Baton Rouge this week, and if the energy in the exhibit hall is any indication, the O&P community in this region is sharp, engaged, and asking the right questions. Our booth was busy. Really busy. And the conversations were the kind you actually want to have — The small talk is always nice, and the char-grilled oysters at Drago’s are amazing, but we had real discussions about workflow documentation and simplification, AI assisted documentation, accreditation prep, and what it means to run a practice that's sustainable five years from now.
What's Generating the Buzz: OPIE 2.0
A lot of that booth traffic centered on OPIE 2.0, and honestly, it didn't surprise me. Practitioners are tired of software that was built for a world that no longer exists. They want tools that meet them where they are — in the clinic, in the fabrication room, at the front desk when the phone won't stop ringing. OPIE 2.0 is generating real interest because it addresses the friction points that practitioners deal with every single day: documentation workflows, billing efficiency, and the kind of operational visibility that helps OPIE small practices punch above their weight.
If you haven't had a conversation with your Customer Success Manager about OPIE 2.0 yet, that's your next move. They can walk you through what's changing, what it means for your practice specifically, and how to get ready. Don't wait for a conference to have that conversation — reach out directly.
Thursday: A Day Full of Things Worth Thinking About
Thursday's sessions were split between prosthetics and orthotics tracks, and even bouncing between the two, there was a consistent theme: the gap between what the clinical evidence supports and what's actually getting prescribed and justified is real, and it's costing patients.
In the clinical sessions, a theme that kept emerging was a soapbox issue of mine—and we probably all know: the practices that win on justification and appeals aren't necessarily doing better clinical work — they're documenting it better. Outcome measures, functional baselines, progress over time. That data tells the story your payer needs to hear. If your collection process is inconsistent or lives in someone's head instead of the chart, that's worth fixing before you need it.
The session on activity-specific medical justification and outcome measures was equally valuable — and frankly, more immediately actionable. If your practice isn't building outcome measure tracking into your workflow as a standard practice, you're leaving yourself exposed during audits and limiting your ability to advocate for your patients. It's not glamorous work, but it's the work that protects you.
Over on the orthotics side, the evidence-based orthotic decision-making session focused on post-stroke rehabilitation stood out for me. Megan Gautreau's approach to connecting neurological rehab principles to device selection is the kind of interdisciplinary thinking that tends to get lost when we're busy just trying to get through the patient schedule. This is why I have pushed for 25 years for O&P clinicians to professionally ingrain themselves in other rehab professional circles. It really does help make a team.
The session on cognitive checkpoints for KAFO success was also a smart practical framework — the kind of thing you could build into an evaluation checklist without a lot of overhead.
Friday: What I'm Looking Forward To
Friday's combined session lineup might be the strongest single-day agenda I've seen at a state meeting in a while. DeLana Finney opening with the 2026 LCD update is the right call; that information needs to be the foundation everyone is working from before the rest of the day makes sense.
Then there's my session 😊at 9:00 — "Finding Friction: How Leadership and Accreditation Strengthen the O&P Practice." I hope it generate some good conversation! The premise is that accreditation isn't just a compliance checkbox, it's a leadership tool. Practices that treat it that way tend to run better.
John Cronin's session on collections versus cost savings is a conversation the O&P world needs to have more openly. Revenue cycle isn't just a billing department problem. And the cybersecurity and compliance session wrapping up the morning is a topic that too many small practices are still treating as someone else's problem. It isn't.
It's a full two days. The kind that leave you with a list of things to actually do when you get home — which, in my experience, is the best possible outcome from a conference.
See you in the exhibit hall.